Note: Opinions expressed in “Commentary” do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Association of REALTORS® or REALTOR® Magazine.

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Sticks & Stones Won’t Hurt WorstBeware of sellers who complain about their own neighborhoods.Their words may be the biggest threat to a deal.

We live in a world where it has become
too easy to share our opinions publicly.
Social media has given us platforms to
vent our frustrations about anything,
anytime, anywhere to a wide audience,
and now we think we should say out loud
everything that runs through our minds.
Without a doubt, there are benefits to a
society that is more expressive and open
to the exchange of thoughts and ideas.
But we also invite complications, sometimes unknowingly, by failing to acknowledge those times when it’s prudent to
bite our tongues.

Discretion Counts

In real estate, there’s one prominent
instance—and certainly many others—
where it pays in actual dollars for people
to keep their thoughts to themselves:
when sellers are anxious to get out of a
neighborhood they don’t like anymore
but need a buyer who will fall in love with
it. If sellers gripe freely about where they
live, particularly online, it could get back
to potential buyers and convince them
not to buy in the neighborhood or to
make a lower offer on the sellers’ home.

Home owners outgrow their homesall the time, sometimes for contentiousreasons. Some may say their neighbor-hood has gone downhill, the schools arepoor quality, the commute is too long,or property taxes are too high, and theycan’t wait to get out of Dodge. But insteadof discussing it at the dinner table, theyair their frustrations on social media andin online forums such as neighborhoodFacebook pages and groups or town-focused websites. These platforms aresources of information for buyers, soloose-lipped sellers are basically tellingevery prospective buyer what little valuethey feel their neighborhood has. Andthat could hurt the sales price they seek.Even offline neighborhood gripes canaffect the sale of a home. I once workedwith a seller who couldn’t wait to move.One day, I ran into someone he knew whotold me very loudly in a public place thatthe seller had been complaining abouthow he hated the town, thought no prop-erty there could sell for a good price, andconsidered the schools to be garbage. Awoman overheard our conversation andasked, “What God-awful town are youtalking about?”I don’t know whether this woman wasin the market to buy, but if so, I’m sure shewouldn’t have considered my seller’s townafter learning his feelings about it. Andwho knows how many times she repeatedthe story—and how many other potentialbuyers she might have turned off?

Deputized Agents

Sellers should think of themselves asdeputized real estate agents of sorts,responsible for representing their homesas positively as we would. An agent wouldnever undermine a sale by bad-mouthingthe neighborhood; sellers shouldn’t,either. Every time someone gives anopinion, someone else is making an eval-uation based on what that person says.What sellers say about their home andneighborhood gives buyers a perceptionof the home’s value—and perceived valuemeans everything.The theory of six degrees of separa-tion—which posits that any two peopleon Earth are linked by way of six or feweracquaintances—reminds us that wenever know who the person we’re talkingto knows. What we say can have a dominoeffect on future dealings. Once, myhusband and business partner, Bob, andI worked with a buyer who was complain-ing about a seller to her colleagues. Later,she texted Bob, embarrassed, sayingthe coworker she complained to not onlylived in the same town as the seller butalso was a friend of the seller. (Whoops!)Advise your clients not to take a biteout of their own deals and wallets bytalking too much about their own precar-ious situations. We’ve all been bitten bysomething we said or posted that we wishwe could take back. Follow the old adage:If you don’t have anything nice to say,don’t say anything at all.

Beverly R. Meaux is a
business coach and assistant
team leader with Keller
Williams Metropolitan
in Morristown, N. J.